Last night, I turned on the television to see what was happening in Joe Lieberman’s Senate race in Connecticut. What I ran into was a pair of talking heads: A Republican and a Democrat. The Republican said: Lieberman’s defeat proves the Democrats support terrorism. And the Democrat retorted: The war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism.

Now, neither of those statements is exactly true, but there is nothing new about a little hyperbole on an election night. Still, the banter demonstrates a point. Neither party is really debating its solution to the war on terrorism.

The Democrats want to run against the war in Iraq but they’re hardly saying a word about how – after they pull us out of Iraq – they will win the war on terrorism.

The Republican mantra, “stay the course,” isn’t flying too well with voters either. So they’d just as soon not mention it.

The problem is we are in a war with the terrorists and we either have to win it or make a peace that is acceptable without winning it.

But that doesn’t seem to be a debate either party wants – probably because it involves taking a big step into dangerous political waters. The shame is no leader in either party has demonstrated the courage to take that risk.

One comment on “Joe Lieberman”

“The problem is we are in a war with the terrorists and we either have to win it or make a peace that is acceptable without winning it.”

What an odd statement. How do you “…make a peace that is acceptable…” with a terrorist organization? Is it acceptable if they agree only to kill Americans abroad, and not here? Or do we go by numbers–go get to kill X many American civilians each year? With whom do we negotiate these arrangements, and how will it be enforced?

The terrorists are trying to force us to adopt certain policies by terrorizing us into submission. We can do as Gary’s party advocates, which is to try to apease the terrorists by withdrawl, surrender, and kow-towing to them, but I don’t think that will stop them because if they get their way with terror tactics today they will simply have more outrageous demands tomorrow. Or we can continue to hunt them down around the world and catch or kill them where we can, and work with allies to hinder and vex them where that’s feasible, and protect ourselves at all times.

Either way, I don’t see a “victory” in the traditional sense. This is just the way the world is now.